My thoughts on Planned Parenthood

In the wake of all the new hoopla over abortion and Planned Parenthood, I felt compelled to write the essay that follows. I remember, oh it must be over twenty years ago now, a conversation with some friends, really it was with Jack, his ex and her brother John. The topic turned to abortion and John with great conviction said it should be illegal.  Something snapped and I said that no man, no one should dictate what I do with my body. That this issue has no business being a legal issue or political issue. It was a topic I hadn't really given much thought to, for confronted with making a decision like that, I don't know what I'd do. The circumstances would push me one way or the other, but  there would be no one in my family who I could turn to for help. I have an understanding of how it would feel to make either decision. Who am I to cold bloodedly make that decision for someone else. If every woman could be assured of a welcome in society, if every child born out of wedlock was heaped with the love s/he desires, probably abortion as birth control wouldn't be needed. However, that has never been the case. There is so much hypocrisy revolving around this subject. The shock and awe tactics used to inflame us, the holier than thou attitude of some of the anti abortionist. Where is the critical thinking here? Why is NO the only solution? I know that those of you who agree with me will read the essay, I challenge those of you who do not to read a start a dialogue with me.

 Here it is:

On the eve of my first marriage, my beautiful women friends had a party for me, a bridal shower, a custom I hope never dies. Lord how I loved those women, the men too. We were young, smart, brave and mostly true. There was a core of the steadfast but we were always incorporating newcomers as relationships evolved or didn’t.  Some of us worked, some of us went to college, some of us did nothing at all. There was a party every week at someone’s house, someone’s apartment. We drank cheap wine or beer, smoked marijuana, tobacco, and once in awhile something harder like cocaine or mescaline. Psilocybin mushrooms were a temporary fad. Some rode motorcycles, some old sports car, we had a corvette. There were the two or three single guys with revolving girlfriends, couples who were living together or married. Some were constantly traveling, coming back with tales of foreign places, some lived in other towns, others were at university. There was a minor criminal or two, really drugs were illegal so someone had to be. I guess when you think about it we all were criminals. We listened to the latest Rock music, The Who, Joni, Bob, we’d cut our teenage teeth with Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd. We loved Bob Marley.  His album covers made it easier to clean your marijuana from those pesky seeds that would create tiny explosions in the joint you carefully rolled.  I know I left out a bunch, but check the Top One Hundred Rock Bands, a good place to start. We listened to the CBC radio the most intelligent radio ever, commercial free and very au current. Sunday Morning, “Tribal  drums in the jungles of Botswana/ bring back sweet memories of you /we were gorillas there together baby and the skies were always blue” The Royal Canadian Air Farce, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”,  Gilmore’s Albums, Barbara Frum’s As It Happens, Quirks and Quarks with Dr David Suzuki.To get back to the shower, two presents stand out for me. The year was 1976, so much had already happened to let women realize their humanity, to open up their true place in the world. Much has changed for some women, much still needs to be done. As I see it, some where, some time, some man or group of men conspired to rob women of their birthright and created a religion to justify their actions. So like Jacob/Israel, they became rulers overall, setting themselves up as the very God they invented. The universe wasn’t designed for that type of imbalance, you see how ill we’ve become because of it. An elite was set up to determine who would get to the top and stay there. Men with money amassed the power to punish anyone anytime for any reason. It really is fitting that the symbol of justice is a woman forced into blindness.
 But here we were in that time and place, no longer chattels, never as chattels ever again. 

  I was 18 when I made the conscious decision to lose my virginity, it was the obvious next step in the exciting, physical relationship I was involved in. Really had I been brave enough I’d have lost myself in balms when I was 16 but while my father was liberal in some ways, in others he was draconianly strict. He threatened me on a regular basis once I turned 14 that I was not to come home should I find that I was pregnant. At fourteen that was most terrifying. He used to cut out articles from the paper about rape to show me what I should be frightened of. It worked, I spent many years afraid. At 62 not so much anymore. But I ask, how is it that a baby can only bring joy when you do the right things, according to religions and bring so much terror when you don’t. How is it when you put your penis in your wife you make her holy, but when you put it in another woman it makes her of low moral character. How is it that your demand for sex is so overpowering yet you cowardly turn your back on the consequences, leaving the woman and child to make their way in a society that you have caused to hate unwed mothers and bastard children. How is it that your demand for sex is so great you would destroy a woman, by enslaving her, by vilifying her. What’s wrong with you? Who taught you this and shame on the women who go along with it. There’s my rant.

The first present that was mind blowing, was “The Joy Of Sex” by Dr. Alex Comfort, newly published the year before. Here was an illustrated book, not the first of it’s kind thanks to the orientals but a book that illuminated how sex was a language that connected everyone to everything. So much divides humans on this planet but sex we have in common and no matter who wants to banish it from the world, the billions of us now on this glorious earth are testament to the power of sex. It’s now 40 years later and y’all are still getting all hurdy gurdy over an exposed nipple. Sometimes I think the promise of our youth was greatly squandered. The contortions women go through to be heard is mind boggling. It’s insane that we must still lead with our bodies to get attention.

The second book was “Our Bodies Ourselves” a book that was about women by women. It dealt with issues that weren't discussed in “polite company” . I grew up not being allowed to use the word ‘pregnant’. My parents never ever talked about sex. I don’t know what they were thinking that they never told us anything except don’t do it. Thanks to Kotex, my mother had a way out of explaining menstruation to me, another word never mentioned. Kotex had a booklet that told the facts which I had to read. Then Mum showed me how to wear the belt and pad. I shudder to think of it now and the monthly terror of being discovered or worse having an accident. O the Shame! Who put that shame in us?

So to get on with how I began, the two presents were awesomely risque for the times. But we were heady with this new freedom and so were the men in our lives. The other threats we, all of us, had from our parents was that no man would marry a used woman. We were discovering how amazingly untrue that was. If anything the men in our lives were exceedingly grateful that they had equals to love and cherish. They understood that because we were aware of our true selves, they were also set free to explore the true meaning of their man-ness

Back to when I was 18, so overwhelmed with sexual desires, so crushingly unsatisfied not to have the ultimate connection. I was with someone who understood the consequences and for many months we would force ourselves to stop, until we found we had reached the point where stopping wasn’t an option. While we had moments of ecstasy we had moments of terror when I would find I was “late”. Y’all know what I mean, don’t pretend you don’t. Just like that, just as the need was great, a Planned Parenthood clinic opened and there in safety and privacy, we could discuss birth control, and the consequences of being active sexually. For me, they shed a light on a very dark area of my life. It was a release of guilt, fear and shame. History shows us that we need this, a safe environment to talk and hopefully resolve issues for the individual and for the society. Because of their care and education, I never had to face the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. Because of their care and education, I know that if I had been in that situation, there would be someone, some place I could go to find a solution. If societies could only resolve this stance it has against sex and educate our children, stop the prejudice and harsh attitudes it has about women and come to an enlightenment about our human nature in all it’s aspects, we may all get out of here with our dignity intact.

Politely Rejected by Harpers

Bagpipes, Sunsets, Bermuda and John Lennon

Going through an old collection of assorted papers and cards, I came across a postcard I’d bought in Bermuda. I like to collect art postcards, sometimes I send them, sometimes I don’t. This one apparently, I kept. It was a reproduction of a watercolour by Andrew Wyeth entitled “The Bermudian”. It depicted a black woman from another time, a time we may want to forget, but never should. She was dressed in white, sitting, bare arms crossed, looking exhausted, in a chair beside a pale blue gray louvered door. The wall behind her white, scratched and stained by the years, the weather, by life. Art was and continues to be, I hope, in the very air you breathe in Bermuda. Painters, poets, and writers have all gone there to relax, to go on vacation, to take a step out of their everyday lives and have discovered that Art was waiting for them even there. Names you’ll undoubtably recognize, some who you’ll never meet. Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe, Frank L. Baum, Alfred Hitchcock, Marsden Hartley, John Lennon. Most, if not all were renewed, revitalized, inspired and perhaps even reborn. John came away from his experience of Bermuda with that beautiful, last album, Double Fantasy, named for a flamboyant Hibiscus growing in the Botanical Gardens.

A very dedicated and energetic Bermudian began to realize that the history of his island home was being beautifully depicted by these extraordinary people, and so began a long voyage for him and like-minded Bermudians, to collect as much of the work as they could. A valuable legacy for all Bermudians now, and those still to come. In March of 2013, I journeyed back for the first time in 22 years, and I was excited to see how far this project had come. A museum had been built on the grounds of Camden House and the Botanical Gardens. I paid a visit to this museum filled with works by Bermudian and International Artists and there in the gift shop I discovered a gorgeous little book entitled Lennon Bermuda. With the book came 2 CD’s of some of the music of John’s, recorded by various Bermudian musicians. It surprised me to learn that he had visited, no one had made mention of it. But then, Bermudians are like that. Unless you’re a high ranking member of the Royal Family, they honour your privacy. I bought the book and read it on the flight home. The book told of John’s sail to Bermuda, and his many experiences during the few months he was there, the summer of 1980, meeting new people, spending time with Sean, writing music. One story, out of all the stories, emerged and got my attention.

Let me tell my story so you’ll understand the significance for me.

I was very fortunate to have lived in Bermuda for almost 10 years. I was even more fortunate to have found a small white cottage by the side of the sea. Actually, a small part of the sea, for Harrington Sound was a large lake-like expanse of water fed by the sea through underground caves and a narrow inlet. The cottage had been built in a niche carved by man out of the limestone hillside. It was about 40 feet above the water, set back about 6 feet, so that sitting on the verandah we could look below and watch the fish in the glass-like water. When we went snorkeling, we discovered  a small underwater cave directly below the house, where we often saw lobsters tucked into the very back, they would come out to touch their antennas to our wiggling fingers.

The cottage was the guest cottage to the big house, a beautiful 2 story house with a great lawn, the center formed by a collapsed cave. Lots of trees, Casaurinas, Frangipani, Hibiscus, Oleanders, and the border of the property left wild, Asparagus fern, Fennel and a little poison ivy. Our cottage had a tiny lawn on one side but the front was steep, dropping sharply 20 feet above the water, left wild. The back of the house was narrow with a high wall behind. A planter had been built that was as high as the walls of the cottage. Nothing much grew there except some scraggily geraniums as there was very little sun. The wall continued up several more feet and above was the beginnings of Mrs. Wilkinson’s estate. Her house was on the point of the small peninsula that defined one side of the cove. But her carriage house was above us. 

Over the years it was converted to a proper cottage. Mrs. Wilkinson actually lived in it for a time while her house underwent repairs from a fire. I remember the day.  The smoke was horrendous, pouring out from under the roof, rolling like a massive storm front.

Eventually she moved back home and the cottage, having by now been completely renovated, was let to young newlyweds. He was the son of a Bermudian of Scottish heritage. I believe his wife was American, a lovely girl, unfortunately afflicted with Lupus.

One beautiful evening as the sun was setting across the Sound, bagpipes began to play the most sublimely romantic yet sorrowful music I had ever heard.  I gave myself over to all the emotions I’d held in check for so long, laughing and crying quietly so not to miss a single note. Forgetting to breathe, as if that would keep me in the moment.

It was the young man. John was his name. He was playing the Piobrochs (Piobaireachd), ancient Scottish music developed along with the evolution of the pipes. The music was written to commemorate the many occasions of man; gatherings, a call-to-arms, weddings, funerals and to honour fallen heroes.They are powerful, they are transcendent, they are cathartic. They invade your heart, causing it to expand and overflow with emotions, turning your sadness to anguish, your joy to elation, your yearnings to lust. Having grown up in Canada, my listening experiences with bagpipes varied but never ever included this music, the truth of the pipes. Yes, I found them rousing when the Black Watch or the RCMP, went on parade with drums and kilts, and fantastic headdresses, but mostly the music was always the same, Amazing Grace, and other songs of that ilk and if the piper was mediocre, well you understand.

I went to visit my neighbour the next day and he told me how he had come to learn to play the bagpipes and those legendary Scottish airs. He’d been trained by a master piper, a friend of his father’s living in New York. He, himself, was a goodly way towards being a master piper and may be one as I write these words many years later.

 As always, I like to see what folks are reading, what art they have on their walls and as I gazed around the tiny cottage, my eyes discerned a framed letter. I went for a closer look and discovered it was signed by John Lennon, with the pencil drawing of his face that I’m sure we all recognize. I don’t remember reading the letter, I probably didn’t. As I grew up, my psyche was formed by hard and fast rules, the most important being, “one must never pry”. A bad thing to have if you want to be a writer. I was left to assume that this young man had bought it from some auction house, some estate sale. I was in the process of leaving my husband which meant leaving Bermuda, so I missed the adventure of getting to know this young couple.

John Lennon was for me a hero of my generation. I suppose he was a disappointment to his first wife and son, to some of his friends and colleagues, pulled as he was in many directions by his art and his humanity. Caught in a tug of war by people, friends, fans, strangers, who needed him to be only one of the many potential lives he had in him to be. But he found a way in the end to be almost all, if not all, of the men who made up the whole of John Lennon. Or so I believe. His death was unlooked for, uncalled for, knocking the breath from your lungs, propelling you to your knees in grief, but somehow inevitable. We can’t seem to rest easy with greatness in our midst. Some of us ‘dirty rascals’ need to defeat the ‘kings and queens’ of the castles.

In the stories of John Lennon in Bermuda, I read of his sail across the Atlantic, his time with his son, and the first hand accounts of his new found friends. The places he visited, the adventures he had. He and Sean rented a lovely cottage near the city of Hamilton where they spent a time most revitalizing and inspirational. It came to him one evening, a glorious sound over the waters and through the oleanders. The Piobrochs came to him I think as it came to me. He wrote a letter to the Piper. The very same I saw framed in that tiny cottage on Harrington Sound. My eyes can never more behold a sunset without my ears straining to hear the Piobrochs. And learning that John shared the same experience as I did, my thoughts often turn to him as well.